Search This Blog

Late 14th century arm observations

I've been tinkering with arm designs for years and something Ian Laspina said got me digging into a trend in the late 14th century originals. From 1375 to 1410, in England, we see a three things:
1. The entries in effigies and brasses (great web site, totally explore it) show far more flat brasses than the same span in France, Germany and Belgium, which favors full sculptures.
2. The English examples are more homogeneous. It's like they had a vacuforming storm trooper mold that they popped these guys out of.
3. The English guys are more likely to have a long rerebrace and a short spaulder.Here are the English guys.Here are the French, Belgian, Austrian and German guys.
It's harder to give an example of the look that was typical on the content, because there's so much variety. A lot of them have partially obscured, damaged, or just vague shoulder protection. Some of them are a lot like the English guys, though they're more likely to have pauldron lames that go down to the middle of the upper arm, while the English guys tend to have a smallish spaulder cop and a few short lames that stop in the dip between the shoulder muscles and the swell of the tricep.
I've collected a hundred images of late 14th century arms on Pinterest here. Seems like my eye is drawn toward the long rerebrace versions.

I've been playing in the SCA for years. I started in Aethelmarc while I was going to school in Syracuse. I played in the East during the summers where I joined ICOD as a squire to Duke Gregor. After graduating I moved to the principality of Cynagua in the West Kingdom. After several years and squiring to Brion of Bellatrix I was knighted. We moved to Ansteorra almost five years ago. I'm interested in armouring, history, fighting, early music, and brewing.